Whiteness in the glare of war: Soldiers, migrants and citizenship

Abstract

The figure of the soldier-migrant demonstrates why it is important to bring the question of military service into contemporary sociological debates about citizenship, belonging and racism. The article draws on an understanding of whiteness as a fundamental component of historical and gendered notions of citizenship that feed the ‘hypnotic ideals’ of national identity. Because of academic specialism and disciplinary boundaries, however, the intersections between civil and military spheres are often neglected as a locus for exploring racialized terms of belonging and exclusion, particularly in times of war. The article discusses key questions raised by the campaign for Gurkha settlement rights and the employment of thousands of personnel from Commonwealth countries in the British Army, bringing the notion of whiteness as ‘fitness for citizenship’ into dialogue with recent work on the soldier-citizen developed in Canada and the USA. Recent British National Party (BNP) propaganda demonstrates the perils of leaving the link between military service and the indigenous ‘deserving’ Brit undisturbed, and the concept of postcolonial melancholia remains a vital way to approach the mobilization of war memories as a way of defining the terms of UK citizenship today

Saying no to military service – obligation, killing and inequality as experienced problems in conscription-based military in Finland

“…Previous studies suggest that an individual's level of globalism, lack of active local ties, as well as higher levels of consumerism significantly increase the tendency to evade military service (Adres et al 2012: 95). Changes in citizenship alter the idea of conscription as an obligatory part of citizenship (Eichler 2013;Ware 2010).…”

From War Grave to Peace Garden: Muslim Soldiers, Militarized Multiculture, and Cultural Heritage

“…Ministry of Defence October 2012. 9 The rapid increase in numbers of 'military migrants' soon proved its PR value in the face of British National Party claims that military service in defence of the UK was an all-white affair (Ware 2010). However, the arrest in 2017 of five servicemen allegedly discovered to be members of the banned neo-Nazi organization National Action indicated that current and former soldiers could be particularly vulnerable to the allure of white supremacist groups (Davey 2017).…”

“…Military history -whether deeds of past glory or simply the re-iteration that 'We Were There Too' -acquires value as a resource for survivors and descendants, whether it is made to re-articulate group identities or provide the basis of assimilation and integration strategies (Krebs 2004). In the UK and elsewhere in Europe, a combination of factors has re-animated discussions about the significance of military service -and specifically death in uniform -for grounding citizenship claims for postcolonial migrants and their descendants (Qureshi 2013, Ware 2010). Yet as Nirmal Puwar writes in an essay on the 'Spatial Interruptions of War, Nation, and Memory', while these kinds of gestures aspire to bring in those who have been hitherto excluded, 'they are largely limited by the fact that the categories that pervade our existing notions of the nation and the national archives remain largely unquestioned' (2011, pp.…”

“…Aaqil Ahmed, the BBC's head of religion and ethics, reportedly explained that he commissioned the film after seeing the burial ground in its relatively abandoned state and realizing that it was 'a forgotten part of British history and a story worth telling '. 6 It is perhaps inevitable that military service in the cause of defending Britain's interests in the past remains an important qualification for enacting modern claims to citizenship and defining the bounds of the political, national and postcolonial community (Paul 1998, Ware 2010. However, in an effort to unpick the different elements involved in the reconstruction of this extraordinary site, it is necessary to focus on the contemporary 'Muslim soldier', a complex figure which has largely escaped the attention of those who study the 'integrated culture of militarism' in the UK (Rogers 2017, p.198).…”

Everyday Matters in Global Private Security Supply Chains: A Feminist Global Political Economy Perspective on Gurkhas in Private Security

“…The aforementioned gender research is important, yet, with the exception of Barker (2009), Ware (2010), Eichler (2014) and Chisholm (2014aChisholm ( , 2014bChisholm ( , 2015, has not yet systematically engaged with discussions of how global security labour chains constitute and are constituted by gendered and racialised relations. Such a gap results in missing the ways global South labourers and their communities are called upon to support the industry through paid and unpaid work.…”